


Empty

by being_nonchalant



Category: American Horror Story
Genre: Death, Family Secrets, Gen, Ghost Tate, Ghosts, Michael meets Tate, Tate junior, Tate/Michael, Teenage Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/being_nonchalant/pseuds/being_nonchalant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael Langdon is 15, living with a tiresome woman who likes to refer to herself as his mother. Life for him is empty and unfulfilling. Until he meets someone who shares his distaste for Mrs. Langdon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a working progress - literally making it all up as I go along. I just really had the urge to write something AHS that didn't revolve around Violate. There'll probably only be several short chapters. 6 or 7 maybe? Please excuse any poor grammar or spelling.

He held up the gold baroque style photo frame. It had been in his home his entire life, but he'd never actually look-looked at it. From the centre smiled a younger woman to the one he saw on a daily basis. A glamourous woman, surrounded by four small children. He placed the photo back down. He'd never seen any of these children before, not a single one of them. But the woman.. Well that was definitely Constance. 

Constance Langdon was his mother. Or so that's what she referred to herself as. But Michael wasn't stupid, there was no way this woman could be his mother, she was far too old, and quite frankly, he didn't see much of a resemblance. 

He glanced at his own appearance in the mirror hanging above the fireplace. Maybe his hair was of a similar colour? But that was as far as their similarities ran. For a 15 year old he was of average height, average build, average everything. He tried to smile at his self through the glass, but he couldn't seem to make his mouth work that way. Perhaps it was his body's way of telling himself that he didn't feel much like smiling.. He continued to focus on every individual feature on his face before taking notice of another frame on the side. The photo was one of a teenage boy. He stood alone under the tree that Michael recognized from the garden, looked around 17, with dirty blonde messy hair, and eyes that felt that even when they were looking at you, they weren't really taking you in. He obviously didn't feel much like smiling either.

"Mum? Who are those children in that photo on the mantel?" He inwardly cringed at calling this woman 'mum' whilst knowing full well she was nothing of the sort. 

Constance sat in her suede bordeaux chair across the room. A glass of red wine hanging limply in one hand, and a cigarette dangling in the other. "Oh. Why they're my dear babies. My first ones.. Before you came, dear. They,. Well, they simply don't live here no more." Her southern accent trailed off along with her thoughts.

"So, where do they live?"

She gestured with her hand, flailing it slightly. "Oh, around.."

Michael found her vagueness tiresome. "Okay then. How about the boy? Where does he live?"

Constance inhaled for a short while before answering. "Which boy?"

"The one that looks empty"

"Empty?"

"Yeah, the teenage boy. The one under the tree. He's just kind of staring, but not really _looking_. It makes him look like he doesn't feel anything. Like he's empty."

Constance sighed. "Oh, you mean Tate." She paused to take a drag from her cigarette. "He's no longer with us."

He frowned to himself. "As in, he died? How?"

"Yes, Michael. My beautiful boy died. But now I have you, and you are just as blessed as he was with your looks. So can we please, stop talking of the past, and focus on what we have here."

With more frowning Michael left the living room.

He turned the corner and walked towards his bedroom, flinging himself effortlessly on the bed. Thoughts of all of Constance's children running through his head, and if they are all dead. And if so, why are they all dead? What sort of monstrous woman has four dead children that barely made it to adulthood? He wonders how he ended up with her. And if she's not his birth mother, then who is she? How did he end up with her? This woman surrounded by death and destruction. What person in their right mind would think she was a capable mother figure?

And did she ever do anything for him whilst he was growing up? She kept him sheltered. Enclosed. He didn't go to proper school, he had private tutors and home schooled lessons to ensure that he didn't mix with the kids in the neighbourhood. He didn't have any friends, only her. She kept him all to herself.. Her 'baby'. She suffocated him and made him feel sick to his stomach. Maybe this was how her other children died, she suffocated them so much that they just chose to stop breathing to avoid her. Maybe they did kill themselves.. Tate definitely didn't look happy. 

Michael wasn't happy. He hated everything about his life and wanted nothing more than to get away from this house and his mother. 

With faraway thoughts he looked out the window, only to realize that he was being watched by another teenage boy in the house across from his own. Getting up from his bed to get a closer look at this weirdo, he noticed that the boy looked oddly familiar. 

Tate?

Was Michael going crazy or was Tate standing next door, staring at him through the window? Why on earth would he be next door? Nobody occupied the house next door.. It was on the market, and had been on and off for as long as Michael could remember. 

Tate raised his hand and made a gun shape with his fingers, raising it to his head and pretending to pull the trigger. He could see the boys lips form a gun noise 

_Pow_.


	2. Checkers.

Tate walked back from the window and turned to leave the unoccupied bedroom, smirking to himself after getting Michael's attention. _Now I just need to get him over here, and we can talk some things over._

Vivien stood by the door frame, blocking his way out. She wasn't a threat to Tate in this house, but she had a way of making him feel guilty just by looking at him. "What do you think you were doing Tate?.. The poor boy could recognize you for crying out loud. Why can't you just leave him be?"

Tate huffed out a response. "Why does it matter to you Vivien? You've got your baby, stay out of other people's business." 

"Maybe so, but that boy's also a part of me. And I need to know he won't live a life bound to this household. He's free! He can go anywhere, do anything! ..Please, don't bring him over here" she pleaded with open eyes.

Tate's hands balled into fists in his pockets. _Vivien didn't understand._ "He's living with Constance for crying out loud! He's not free in the slightest! I'm trying to help him."

Her eyes rolled and she sighed. "Yes Tate, I'm sure you are. After all, all you ever did was try to help people.." With a disappointed look on her face she trailed off down the hallway. He frowned to himself. How dare she bring up his past.. He'd never done anything wrong. Everything he did was for the greater good, for a greater purpose, and for a greater person. And he would continue to help Michael despite Vivien's disapproval, she had her own things to take care of. Michael had only him. 

And he had only Michael.

 

***

 

Michael continued to stare out the window in disbelief. _Had Tate really been there? ..Or was he just imagining it all? It did seem weirdly coincidental._ He tugged his sweater over his head and fluffed his hair about in the messy way he liked it and went downstairs to go out to the back yard.

And decided that he would stroll over to next door to see if anyone was actually living there.

 

***

 

 

Tate heard a rapping of knuckles on the hardwood door and the tinny ring of the doorbell. He trundled down the spiral-esque staircase and opened the door before even checking to see who was on the other side. 

"Uh-Are yo- Are you Tate?" the boy stammered, standing awkwardly on the porch. He wasn't far off Tate in height, same curly messy locks, same taste in clothes.. _Hold up, that's my old shirt!_ Tate's bout of jealously over his old personal possessions left him quickly and he smiled after thinking it nice that there was someone so like him around.

"Well it's nice to see you've at least heard of me." He smirked and he swung his head to indicate for Michael to come inside.

The boy cautiously stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Uh. Yeah. I've heard a little." he said quietly as he followed Tate up the stairs and to a bedroom; a bedroom decorated darkly, with walls covered in many many posters of various bands and places, and several dozen sketches.

"Hope you don't mind if we hang in my room. It's the only place I really like in this place. Minus the basement."

Michael was looking at one sketch in particular, one of a teenage girl sat on a wall, legs hanging over the wall and smoke floating from a cigarette she held. "Sure. Yeah, uh any where's fine with me."

Tate fell gracefully into his usual cross-legged position on the floor and signaled for Michael to take a seat near him. "I'm guessing you have a question to ask" he laughed.

Michael nervously took a seat on the floor across from him. "Yes, well.. One main one I guess."

"Checkers?" Tate reached under the bed and pulled out a checkers board, setting up the little wooden pieces despite the fact Michael hadn't even answered his request. "And shoot."

Michael cleared his throat and shot.  
He wanted to laugh, this was the stupidest sounding question he'd ever asked. "..Why are you alive?" He moved his piece first and offered it up as the first sacrifice in the game to Tate's black pieces. He thought it wise not to get on his bad side, even over a game. Tate made Michael nervous.

Tate took his piece without question and continued to focus on the board as he answered. "I'm guessing Constance told you otherwise. But basically the bitch lied to you, because as you can clearly see.. I'm right here in front of your very eyes."

 _So it seems_ "But that doesn't really make sense does it? Because you look the same age as you did in her old photo from years ago, you should be like thirty or something.."

Tate smiled, eyes glistening beneath blonde hair. "It's simple. I just age well."

Michael laughed this time. "Why don't I feel like that's the truth?"

 

Tate took another of his pieces and chuckled. "Because maybe it's nowhere near close."


	3. Squatter

Michael and Tate continued playing checkers multiple times until Tate decided he was no longer interested in the game. Which actually was a fairly long while, Michael was already bored, but didn't want to say anything. Tate stretched up and headed towards the hall, "Want a tour of the place then?"

"Sure." Michael stood and brushed off his black jeans which were covered in slight dust from the floor. "So, I'm guessing you can't afford this place. Doesn't that make you a squatter?"

" _'Squatter'_ Pfft, no" Tate laughed! "No way. I used to live here. Technically I never left, so its still my house."

"By _'used to'_ you mean..?"

Tate smiled and then sighed to himself. "There's several things we really need to talk about if you're going to be coming over here more often. But first, the tour." He strolled off humming to himself letting Michael trail absentmindedly behind.

 

***

 

They sat in a room that seemed like a fancy reading space, maybe another smaller living room, or just a quiet study like place for someone. Tate laid across a sofa on his back, hands resting on his chest, talking towards the ceiling, Michael sat upright in a chair opposite, resembling a shrink/patient sort of situation.

"Okay, so run it all by me one more time." Michael sighed.

"I know it's not easy to grasp. You wouldn't believe how hard it is trying to get some of you 'living' to understand it.." He laughed, paused and seemed to look thoughtfully on something. He continued to stare at the ceiling and started to rattle on quickly, trying to cover everything again. "Basically, first things - I'm a ghost, explains the non-aging and the fact no one really notices the _'squatting'_ , I was killed here in this house by a bastard S.W.A.T team, reasons on that one don't really need to be gone into, just blame it on the drugs and alcohol and my charade of a family, anyone that dies in or on the grounds of this place will remain here as a ghost, there's several ghosts trapped here, various ages, some are okay, most are total douce bags. Got it?"

Michael shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, I understand.. It's just a little hard to believe, y'know?"

"Maybe, but once you meet some of the others you'll believe. They'll make you see the truth." He went back to his quiet humming.

"When do I get to meet them then?"

Tate didn't expect him to jump on board so quickly, but it was nice that he didn't need a lot of convincing. He sat up and roughed his hands through his hair to keep it from falling flat to against head. He liked it messy. "Why aren't you afraid?"

"You're not afraid. So why should I be?"

"Well I'm a ghost as well, what could they possibly do to me that hasn't been done already?"

Michael smiled in agreement and didn't say anything more. Tousled his hair in the same way Tate did and rested his legs on the coffee table, thinking about everything Tate had told him so far. There was nothing to say other than that he must be off his rocker to even consider it was the truth. But it was the only thing that explained how Tate was here, _living_ , despite what Constance had told him, and that he hadn't aged a day since he died. Maybe he was off his rocker, he'd definitely considered there may be something wrong with his head before, maybe he was right. But then again, crazy people don't know they're crazy.

"Moira'll curse you for that." Tate chirped in.

He lifted his feet back off obediently and didn't question who 'Moira' was, or why she'd curse him.


	4. Adopted Brothers.

Tate paced back and forth in his room, his mind swimming with thoughts. He and Michael had been spending the past few days together in the house, playing checkers and talking about everything. Well. Not _everything_.

There were certain things Tate considered weren't important in telling the boy. Such as why several of the ghosts took a disliking to him, and who he was in relation to Michael. But he was adamant in keeping Michael in his life now. He needed to get him away from Constance. She was no good for him, for anyone, and she'd taken him away from Tate in the first place.

And now Michael was at an almost perfect age where he and Tate could stay and be young together forever.

 

****

 

It had been several weeks since they'd first met now and both were quite comfortable around each other.

Michael knocked in time 'dun-dun-dun-dun' and again, 'dun-dun-dun-dun'. It was how Tate knew it was him on the other side. The lock clicked as the door was opened and Michael shuffled in. 

"You're looking a little worse for wear," Tate noticed as Michael wore a distant look. "Everything cool?"

He half smiled. "I guess so, just the usual stuff.. Life gets you down, you bear an unhappy face, go to bed, wake up, circle of life. Y'know?"

"Oh I know." Tate agreed, raising a sympathizing half smile back at him. That was one thing he understood completely. Life really was a cruel bitch. "Come on, let's get everything off your mind." "Did you want a cup of tea or something?"

Michael kicked his trainers off by the door, feeling more at home than he'd ever had next door. "Sure. None of the herbal crap though, just the classic stuff, with lots of milk and sugar." He added.

 

****

 

They sat at the kitchen counter sipping tea. Both continuously adding sugar, but only one of them taking it milky.

"So what exactly is getting you down today then, may I ask?" 

Just one word was uttered, and Tate could feel his pain. 

"Constance." He muttered under his flop of matted blonde hair.

Tate chuckled quietly. "Oh I can get that. The only cool thing about being trapped inside this place is that I didn't have to be stuck with her. This place can be so peaceful."

"It's not that she particularly tries to do anything to anger or upset me.." Michael slurped his tea. "It's just, I'm sick of being alone with her.. It's like, I'm a trophy child or something? She only wants me to keep me silent and still like a doll, she checks up on me every couple of hours, that's why I have to keep sneaking back into the garden or through a window to show my face. She refuses to let me have a life away from her or to tell me the truth about anything, an I can tell she's got a ton of secrets. I have doubts that she's even related to me, and I can't work out how I ended up with her. I feel completely trapped with her in that house." 

He looked up from the marble counter top at Tate. "Sometimes I wish I could be stuck here with you. You actually feel like a brother to me. Although.. Constance can't be my mother, so saying that, I guess we are more like.. I don't know? Adopted brothers or something."

Tate smiled. It was endearing that Michael considered him his brother, even if it was completely wrong.

Tate knew he could never ever tell him that they were actually father and son, it would mess things up completely. _Adopted brothers would be how it would have to stay._ "I wish you could live here too. It would be cool having someone like you around here all the time. It gets pretty lonely with all the non-sleeping and everything.."

Michael paused and looked at though he'd just had an idea. "Then why don't I move in?.. I mean, nobody would notice? It seems that this place will really stay on the market forever now." 

"It's a nice idea, but you know Constance would come looking for you over here as soon as she realized you were gone for more than a few hours.." He trailed his finger tip in circular motions around the rim of the mug on the tabletop. "And it's not like you can disappear like a ghost, is it? She'd drag you back."

Michael's face dropped again, resembling a child's "Sometimes I wish I was a ghost" he groaned. "Life here seems so much better."

"Maybe so, but you'll be trapped for eternity here.."

"Eternity doesn't seem so bad when you've got checkers." He added.


	5. Tables.

Michael sat at the kitchen table as Constance hummed whimsical tunes to herself, slowly stirring stew around in a silver pan with a spoon. 

He played with the silverware in front of him, it was fairly fancy stuff. Or, it at least looked fancy. He thought distantly about places he'd rather be. Or rather, the only place he wanted to be. It had been a day since his talk with Tate about moving in, and although Tate had told him it was impossible to do so, he'd still thought about it constantly.

He'd even considered one rather drastic idea. 

He wasn't even going to kid himself, it was a crazy idea. But it was an idea nonetheless, and it would guarantee him a life in the house with Tate forever.

Her voice interrupted his thoughts. "What're you thinkin' about so dreamily over there?" She smiled at him and slowly walked over to the table, stood behind him and bent down, wrapping her frail arms around him and gently stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. It was all done lovingly, but the gesture made him queasy. Her perfume was so strong it made his eyes feel like watering, and nothing about the touch felt right. Not the way a touch between a 'mother and her son' should feel.

"Nothing really." He answered. "Just staring into space."

"Ahh" She hummed, drifting back to stir her stew. Filling her lungs with the scent. "Well." She started, "Staring into space isn't good for anythin. You ought to be thinking about what you'll want to do with yourself after we finish your tutoring lessons and fill out those official exams." she added, gesturing her wooden spoon in the air.

"That's not for another years time ..I can think about that whenever." he muttered, looking down from her and at the harsh white table cloth. "Anyway," he sighed "I'm no good at anything."

"Now now, I won't have negative talk like that from any child of mine. You'll do great things." She said turning off the stove. "You'll be the one successful thing I'll have to show for my life." "Ah yes.. Great things" she continued to mutter to herself as she poured Michael a bowl of the pork and apple stew and he gazed out the nearby window. 

 

****

 

Tate sat alone at the dining room table in the murder house. He didn't see the point in physically making himself a meal, as ghosts didn't eat. Frankly they didn't need to drink either, but he saw the tea drinking and snack eating as a way to be closer to Michael.

Vivien entered the room and took a seat across from him. 

He felt the presence of inferring talk.

She didn't wait for idle chit chat before making it clear why she'd sat down. "I thought I'd told you to leave him be Tate? I saw him over here with you the other day. I heard what you were saying."

Tate continued to look down at the detailed patterns carved into the wood of table top. Tracing them childishly. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of eye contact. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that listening to other people's conversations was rude?"

"Don't play with me Tate" she said firmly, "You're dangling the possibility of living here as a ghost right in front of him. I distinctly told you, I do not want that boy trapped in this house!"

"I have no idea what you're insinuating Vivien. I told him he couldn't live here." Tate said smugly.

"You and me both know what was written all over that boys face." She got up and pushed the chair forcefully under the table. "I have no idea how you get this hold over people, but you do. You twist them to fit your disturbed little mind, and you have them considering all sorts, and frankly it makes me sick." She added as she paced away.

Tate slammed his fists down on the table. Who was she to judge him?! She knew nothing about him! But he knew what she'd been talking about really. And her daughter had been the one who had wanted to take her life so that they could be together anyway.. He'd merely been the one to suggest it. If Michael decided to do the same, it wasn't his fault. "I DON'T MAKE ANYBODY DO ANYTHING!!" Tate yelled to the empty room. 

_"..I help them to be happier"_ he whispered in the dark.


	6. Devil.

Michael lay on Tate's bed staring at the ceiling.

"Let yourself in this time did you?" A voice charmed from the hallway.

He sat up, not recognizing the voice and called back out the room. "Who's there?"

He swaggered in through the door way, his arms crossed across his chest, his dark hair flopped to one side and his dark eyes staring from underneath even darker brows. "Oh, we've never met. Officially. But I know who you are." He paused at the end of the bed and leant against the rail. "Boy, I am glad things turned out the way they did. I mean can you imagine me raising a child who looked exactly like the kid who murdered m-"

"-I think you'd better get your queer ass out of here." Tate spat from the doorway.

"And speak of the devil." The older guy teased, turning around to face him. "The very devil indeed." 

"I told you to go. Chad."

"Oh, how nice of you to address me so formally. I think somebody's finally learning their manners."

Tate scowled, "Go! GET OUT."

"Now now, lets not get too antsy. I'm going, I'm going." He strolled back out the room in the quirky manner he'd entered it, staring Tate up and down as he passed him. "Oh, bye Michael" he added before going completely.

Tate looked at Michael, not sure how much he'd been told.

He looked back, "Who.. was that? An- And what did he mean?"

It seemed as though he'd not been told anything much. Chad had only thrown ideas at the boy in his usual teasing way. Tate decided to play it cool. "Mean by what?"

"He said- He, he said something about knowing me, and if things were different he'd be raising a child that looked like someone who murdered someone he knew. Or him. It wasn't very clear."

"I expect he's just talking crazy. He wasn't one of the sane ones." He chuckled.

Michael stared at his hands, not looking Tate in the eyes. There was definitely something he wasn't being told.


	7. Smile.

After what felt like decades of silence, and may have been for Tate's part, Michael broke the silence.

"I know there's something you're not telling me." he said sternly from under his flop of hair.

Tate looked up to face him and caught his upper lip between his teeth. "I know.."

"Well? Aren't you going to say anything else?!"

"Look, Michael, I want to tell you, I do." He paused. Unsure how to carry on his lies. Silently seething, unable to fathom how that god damn queen had meddled in his business yet again. "But, I don't think it's what you'd want to hear.. I mean, why don't we forget about the other ghosts and just carry on as we were." He smiled sweetly, "Just me and you."

"I'm not a child Tate, I deserve some truth! You're treating me like a baby, and we're almost the same age!"

"Not really, I mean like you said before, I'm more like 30 somet-"

"No! Don't make yourself out to be the adult here! You have no authority over me! WHO are you to treat me like YOUR child?!" Tate flinched at that. Who was he indeed to treat him like his child..  
Michael had gotten up from the bed now, facing Tate, he was almost the same size. "I thought you were the one person who got me!? Who understood how it felt to be belittled and misunderstood, we're brothers for crying out loud!"

Tate closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled loudly. Trying so hard to push back the frustration clouding his brain.

"I DO GET YOU MICHAEL. I'M THE ONLY PERSON WHO DOES!" He paused, lowering his voice "I'm just trying to help you.." His brown eyes watery, making him look sadder than ever.

Michael began to feel guilty for yelling and sighed. "Help me how Tate?"

"I wanted to help you get away, from her" he gestured to the window, "Constance." 

"You have been helping me, but I feel like I can't trust you anymore with all this secretiveness."

"There's no secrets worth knowing. I told you, they don't matter."

There was no response, only silence, which seemed to fill up the house completely and flood out every window. Contaminating the whole street with the sound of nothing.

"I wanted to help you for eternity." Tate murmured. "I promise I'll tell you everything if you promise me one thing." He wasn't entirely sure if he meant the promise, he just needed Michael to agree to his plan.

Michael swallowed hard, "And what's that?"

"That you'll stay here, forever, with me." He reached out for Michael's hand and held it tight, sympathizing.

It wasn't until he let go that Michael noticed the bottle of pills that had been place in his palm. "You mean.."

"-I know it sounds scary." Tate said firmly, "But I swear it won't hurt, and it'll mean that you'll be free of her forever." He smiled briefly. "Just picture it, Me and you together forever in this house, no one will bother us, and Constance won't be able to find you. She'll come looking, sure, but she'll never control you again. Leave her, be with me."

Micheal leant in and hugged Tate. It was true that he loved him like an actual brother, and it wasn't like he hadn't already thought of this solution before. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea? If the world you live in is too hard and too empty, and you're offered a place in another with somebody you love, why wouldn't you except? It wasn't really death..

"..Okay" he whispered, still clinging to Tate.

Tate felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Something that he'd maybe never felt, something that actually made him smile, truly smile. Not like those fake smiles people do for photos or when they see someone in the street, or those brief smiles that come with a moment of happiness that was so short you're left unable to remember it. A real, true smile. 

He whispered back. "I think you should know that when you're here, I don't feel so _empty._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so maybe I didn't end it the way I originally intended to, and it seems I couldn't bare to have Tate and Michael fall out over the truth.. So yes, I was the coward who went for the happy ending. The coward who will never have to find out if Michael did find out the truth, and will never have to deal with Constance's loneliness.
> 
> I just wanted Tate to have a happy ending.


End file.
